Eventually, Vin had to say something. “You visit them often?”
Kelsier nodded. “At least a couple of houses a night. It breaks up the monotony of my other work.”
Killing noblemen and spreading false rumors, Vin thought. Yes, visiting the skaa would be a nice break.
The meeting place was only a few streets away. Kelsier paused in a doorway as they approached, squinting in the dark night. Finally, he pointed at a window, just faintly lit. “Marsh said he’d leave a light burning if the other obligators were gone.”
“Window or stairs?” Vin asked.
“Stairs,” Kelsier said. “The door should be unlocked, and the Ministry owns the entire building. It will be empty.”
Kelsier was right on both counts. The building didn’t smell musty enough to be abandoned, but the bottom few floors were obviously unused. Vin and he quickly climbed up the stairwell.
“Marsh should be able to tell us the Ministry reaction to the House War,” Kelsier said as they reached the top floor. Lanternlight flickered through the door at the top, and he pushed it open, still speaking. “Hopefully, that Garrison won’t get back too quickly. The damage is mostly done, but I’d like the war to go on for—”
He froze in the doorway, blocking Vin’s view.
She flared pewter and tin immediately, falling to a crouch, listening for attackers. There was nothing. Just silence.
“No...” Kelsier whispered.
Then Vin saw the trickle of dark red liquid seeping around the side of Kelsier’s foot. It pooled slightly, then began to drip down the first step.
Oh, Lord Ruler . . .
Kelsier stumbled into the room. Vin followed, but she knew what she’d see. The corpse lay near the center of the chamber, flayed and dismembered, the head completely crushed. It was barely recognizable as human. The walls were sprayed red.
Could one body really produce this much blood? It was just like before, in the basement of Camon’s lair—only with a single victim.
“Inquisitor,” Vin whispered.
Kelsier, heedless of the gore, stumbled to his knees beside Marsh’s corpse. He raised a hand as if to touch the skinless body, but remained frozen there, stunned.
“Kelsier,” Vin said urgently. “This was recent—the Inquisitor could still be near.”
He didn’t move.
“Kelsier!” Vin snapped.
Kelsier shook, looking around. His eyes met hers, and lucidity returned. He stumbled to his feet.
“Window,” Vin said, rushing across the room. She paused, however, when she saw something sitting on a small desk beside the wall. A wooden table leg, tucked half-hidden beneath a blank sheet of paper. Vin snatched it as Kelsier reached the window.
He turned back, looking over the room one last time, then jumped out into the night.
Farewell, Marsh, Vin thought regretfully, following.
“ ‘I think that the Inquisitors suspect me,’ ” Dockson read. The paper—a single sheet recovered from inside the table leg—was clean and white, free from the blood that stained Kelsier’s knees and the bottom of Vin’s cloak.
Dockson continued, reading as he sat at Clubs’s kitchen table. “ ‘I’ve been asking too many questions, and I know they sent at least one message to the corrupt obligator who supposedly trained me as an acolyte. I thought to seek out the secrets that the rebellion has always needed to know. How does the Ministry recruit Mistborn to be Inquisitors? Why are Inquisitors more powerful than regular Allomancers? What, if any, are their weaknesses?
“ ‘Unfortunately, I’ve learned next to nothing about the Inquisitors—though the politicking within the regular Ministry ranks continues to amaze me. It’s like the regular obligators don’t even care about the world outside, except for the prestige they earn by being the most clever or successful in applying the Lord Ruler’s dictates.
“ ‘The Inquisitors, however, are different. They are far more loyal to the Lord Ruler than the regular obligators—and this is, perhaps, part of the dissension between the two groups.
“ ‘Regardless, I feel that I am close. They do have a secret, Kelsier. A weakness. I’m sure of it. The other obligators whisper of it, though none of them know it.
“ ‘I fear that I’ve prodded too much. The Inquisitors tail me, watch me, ask after me. So, I prepare this note. Perhaps my caution is unnecessary.
“ ‘Perhaps not.’ ”
Dockson looked up. “That’s . . . all it says.”
Kelsier stood at the far side of the kitchen, back to the cupboard, reclining in his usual position. But . . . there was no levity in his posture this time. He stood with arms folded, head slightly bowed. His disbelieving grief appeared to have vanished, replaced with another emotion—one Vin had sometimes seen smoldering darkly behind his eyes. Usually when he spoke of the nobility.
She shivered despite herself. Standing as he was, she was suddenly aware of his clothing—dark gray mistcloak, long-sleeved black shirt, charcoal trousers. In the night, the clothing was simply camouflage. In the lit room, however, the black colors made him look menacing.
He stood up straight, and the room grew tense.
“Tell Renoux to pull out,” Kelsier said softly, his voice like iron. “He can use the planned exit story—that of a ‘retreat’ back to his family lands because of the house war—but I want him gone by tomorrow. Send a Thug and a Tineye with him as protection, but tell him to abandon his canal boats one day out of the city, then return to us.”
Dockson paused, then glanced at Vin and the others. “Okay...”
“Marsh knew everything, Dox,” Kelsier said. “They broke him before they killed him—that’s how Inquisitors work.”
He let the words hang. Vin felt a chill. The lair was compromised.
“To the backup lair, then?” Dockson asked. “Only you and I knew its location.”
Kelsier nodded firmly. “I want everyone out of this shop, apprentices included, in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at the backup lair in two days.”
Dockson looked up at Kelsier, frowning. “Two days? Kell, what are you planning?”
Kelsier strode over to the door. He threw it open, letting in the mist, then glanced back at the crew with eyes as hard as any Inquisitor’s spikes.
“They hit me where it couldn’t have hurt worse. I’m going to do likewise.”
Walin pushed himself in the darkness, feeling his way through the cramped caverns, forcing his body through cracks nearly too small. He continued downward, searching with his fingers, ignoring his numerous scrapes and cuts.
Must keep going, must keep going... His remaining sanity told him that this was his last day. It had been six days since his last success. If he failed a seventh time, he would die.
Must keep going.
He couldn’t see; he was too far beneath the surface to catch even a reflected glimpse of sunlight. But, even without light, he could find his way. There were only two directions: up and down. Movements to the side were unimportant, easily disregarded. He couldn’t get lost as long as he kept moving down.
All the while, he quested with his fingers, seeking the telltale roughness of budding crystal. He couldn’t return this time, not until he’d been successful, not until...
Must keep going.
His hands brushed something soft and cold as he moved. A corpse, stuck rotting between two rocks. Walin moved on. Bodies weren’t uncommon in the tight caverns; some of the corpses were fresh, most were simply bones. Often, Walin wondered if the dead ones weren’t really the lucky ones.
Must keep going.
There wasn’t really “time” in the caverns. Usually, he returned above to sleep—though the surface held taskmasters with whips, they also had food. It was meager, barely enough to keep him alive, but it was better than the starvation that would come from staying below too long.
Must keep—
He froze. He lay with his torso pinched in a tight rift in the rock, and had been in the process of wiggling his
way through. However, his fingers—always searching, even when he was barely conscious—had been feeling the walls. And they’d found something.
His hand quivered with anticipation as he felt the crystal buds. Yes, yes, that was them. They grew in a wide, circular pattern on the wall; they were small at the edges, but got gradually bigger near the center. At the direct middle of the circular pattern, the crystals curved inward, following a pocketlike hollow in the wall. Here, the crystals grew long, each one having a jagged, sharp edge. Like teeth lining the maw of a stone beast.
Taking a breath, praying to the Lord Ruler, Walin rammed his hand into the fist-sized, circular opening. The crystals ripped his arm, tearing long, shallow gashes in his skin. He ignored the pain, forcing his arm in further, up to his elbow, searching with his fingers for...
There! His fingers found a small rock at the center of the pocket—a rock formed by the mysterious drippings of the crystals. A Hathsin geode.
He grasped it eagerly, pulling it out, ripping his arm again as he withdrew it from the crystal-lined hole. He cradled the small rock sphere, breathing heavily with joy.
Another seven days. He would live another seven days.
Before hunger and fatigue could weaken him further, Walin began the laborious climb back upward. He squeezed through crevasses, climbed up juttings in walls. Sometimes he had to move to the right or left until the ceiling opened up, but it always did. There were really only two directions: up and down.
He kept a wary ear out for others. He had seen climbers killed before, slain by younger, stronger men who hoped to steal a geode. Fortunately, he met nobody. It was good. He was an older man—old enough to know that he never should have tried to steal food from his plantation lord.
Perhaps he had earned his punishment. Perhaps he deserved to die in the Pits of Hathsin.
But I won’t die today, he thought, finally smelling sweet, fresh air. It was night above. He didn’t care. The mists didn’t bother him anymore—even beatings didn’t bother him much anymore. He was just too tired to care.
Walin began to climb out of the crack—one of dozens in the small, flat valley known as the Pits of Hathsin. Then he froze.
A man stood above him in the night. He was dressed in a large cloak that appeared to have been shredded to strips. The man looked at Walin, quiet and powerful in his black clothing. Then he reached down.
Walin cringed. The man, however, grabbed Walin’s hand and pulled him out of the crack.
“Go!” the man said quietly in the swirling mists. “Most of the guards are dead. Gather as many prisoners as you can, and escape this place. You have a geode?”
Walin cringed again, pulling his hand toward his chest.
“Good,” the stranger said. “Break it open. You’ll find a nugget of metal inside—it is very valuable. Sell it to the underground in whatever city you eventually find yourself; you should earn enough to live on for years. Go quickly! I don’t know how long you have until an alarm is raised.”
Walin stumbled back, confused. “Who...who areyou?”
“I am what you will soon be,” the stranger said, stepping up to the rift. The ribbons of his enveloping black cloak billowed around him, mixing with the mists as he turned toward Walin. “I am a survivor.”
Kelsier looked down, studying the dark scar in the rock, listening as the prisoner scrambled away in the distance.
“And so I return,” Kelsier whispered. His scars burned, and memories returned. Memories of months spent squeezing through cracks, of ripping his arms on crystalline knives, of seeking each day to find a geode...just one, so that he could live on.
Could he really go back down into those cramped, quiet depths? Could he enter the darkness again? Kelsier held up his
arms, looking at the scars, still white and stark on his arms.
Yes. For her dreams, he could.
He stepped over to the rift and forced himself to climb down inside of it. Then he burned tin. Immediately, he heard a cracking sound from below.
Tin illuminated the rift beneath him. Though the crack widened, it also branched, sending out twisting rifts in all directions. Part cavern, part crack, part tunnel. He could already see his first crystalline atium-hole—or what was left of it. The long, silvery crystals were fractured and broken.
Using Allomancy near atium crystals caused them to shatter. That was why the Lord Ruler had to use slaves, and not Allomancers, to collect his atium for him.
Now the real test, Kelsier thought, squeezing down further into the crack. He burned iron, and immediately he saw several blue lines pointing downward, toward atium-holes. Though the holes themselves probably didn’t have an atium geode in them, the crystals themselves gave off faint blue lines. They contained residual amounts of atium.
Kelsier focused on one of the blue lines and Pulled lightly. His tin enhanced ears heard something shatter in the crack beneath him.
Kelsier smiled.
Nearly three years before, standing over the bloody corpses of the taskmasters who had beaten Mare to death, he had first noticed that he could use iron to sense where crystal pockets were. He’d barely understood his Allomantic powers at the time, but even then, a plan had begun to form in his mind. A plan for vengeance.
That plan had evolved, growing to encompass so much more than he’d originally intended. However, one of its key parts had remained sequestered away in a corner of his mind. He could find the crystal pockets. He could shatter them, using Allomancy.
And they were the only means of producing atium in the entire Final Empire.
You tried to destroy me, Pits of Hathsin, he thought, climbing down further into the rift. It’s time to return the favor.
We are close now. Oddly, this high in the mountains, we seem to finally be free from the oppressive touch of the Deepness. It has been quite a while since I knew what that was like.
The lake that Fedik discovered is below us now—I can see it from the ledge. It looks even more eerie from up here, with its glassy—almost metallic—sheen. I almost wish I had let him take a sample of its waters.
Perhaps his interest was what angered the mist creature that follows us. Perhaps... that was why it decided to attack him, stabbing him with its invisible knife.
Strangely, the attack comforted me. At least I know that since another has seen it. That means I’m not mad.
33
“SO ... THAT’SIT?” VIN ASKED. “For the plan, I mean.”
Ham shrugged. “If the Inquisitors broke Marsh, that means they know everything. Or, at least, they know enough. They’ll know that we plan to strike the palace, and that we’re going to use the house war as a cover. We’ll never get the Lord Ruler out of the city now, and we’ll certainly never get him to send the palace guard into the city. It doesn’t look good, Vin.”
Vin sat quietly, digesting the information. Ham sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, leaning against the bricks of the far wall. The backup lair was a dank cellar with only three rooms, and the air smelled of dirt and ash. Clubs’s apprentices took up one room to themselves, though Dockson had sent away all of the other servants before coming to the safe house.
Breeze stood by the far wall. He occasionally shot uncomfortable looks at the dirty floor and dusty stools, but then decided to remain standing. Vin didn’t see why he bothered—it was going to be impossible to keep his suits clean while living in what was, essentially, a pit in the ground.
Breeze wasn’t the only one taking their self-imposed captivity resentfully; Vin had heard several of the apprentices grumble that they’d almost rather have been taken by the Ministry. Yet, during their two days in the cellar, everyone had stayed in the safe house except when absolutely necessary. They understood the danger: Marsh could have given the Inquisitors descriptions and aliases for each crewmember.
Breeze shook his head. “Perhaps, gentlemen, it is time to pack up this operation. We tried hard, and considering the fact that our original plan—gathering the army—ended
up so dreadfully, I’d say that we’ve done quite a marvelous job.”
Dockson sighed. “Well, we certainly can’t live off of saved funds for much longer—especially if Kell keeps giving our money away to the skaa.” He sat beside the table that was the room’s only piece of furniture, his most important ledgers, notes, and contracts organized into neat piles before him. He had been remarkably efficient at gathering every bit of paper that could have incriminated the crew or given further information about their plan.
Breeze nodded. “I, for one, am looking forward to a change. This has all been fun, delightful, and all of those other fulfilling emotions, but working with Kelsier can be a bit draining.”
Vin frowned. “You’re not going to stay on his crew?”
“It depends on his next job,” Breeze said. “We aren’t like other crews you’ve known—we work as we please, not because we are told to. It pays for us to be very discerning in the jobs we take. The rewards are great, but so are the risks.”
Ham smiled, resting with his arms behind his head, completely unconcerned about the dirt. “It kind of makes you wonder how we ended up on this particular job, eh? Very high risk, very little reward.”
“None, actually,” Breeze noted. “We’ll never get that atium now. Kelsier’s words about altruism and working to help the skaa were all well and good, but I was always hoping that we’d still get to take a swipe at that treasury.”
“True,” Dockson said, looking up from his notes. “But, was it worth it anyway? The work we did—the things we accomplished?”
Breeze and Ham paused, then they both nodded.
“And that’s why we stayed,” Dockson said. “Kell said it himself—he picked us because he knew we would try something a little different to accomplish a worthwhile goal. You’re good men—even you, Breeze. Stop scowling at me.”
Vin smiled at the familiar banter. There was a sense of mourning regarding Marsh, but these were men who knew how to move on despite their losses. In that way, they really were like skaa, after all.
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